The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,245

you're talking about."

"He owns you somehow."

"You don't get it, do you?" she replied witheringly. "Peter Novak owns the future."

Janson stared. "If you know where he is, then, God help me, I will extract the information from you. Believe this: after a few hours on a Versed-scopolamine drip, you won't know the difference between your thoughts and your speech. Whatever comes into your head will come out of your mouth. If it's in your head, we'll extract it. We'll extract a lot of garbage, too. I'd rather you came clean without chemical assistance. But one way or another, you will tell us what we want to know."

"You're so full of it," she said, and turned to Jessica. "Hey, back me up here. Can't I get a little feminine solidarity on this one? Haven't you heard - sisterhood is powerful." Then she leaned forward, putting her face only inches from his. "Paul, I'm really sorry about your friends getting blown sky-high off Anura." She fluttered her fingers and, in a voice that was pure vinegar, added, "I know you were all broken up about your Greek butt-boy." She loosed a short giggle. "What can I say? Shit happens."

Janson felt a vein in his forehead throb painfully; he knew his face was mottled with rage. He imagined smashing her face, imagined fracturing her facial bones, a spear hand driving the bones of her nose into her brain. Just as swiftly, he felt the fog of fury recede. He recognized that the point of her needling was to get him to lose control. "I'm not presenting you with three choices," he said. "Only two. And if you don't decide, I'll decide for you."

"Is this going to take long?" she said.

Janson grew aware of choral music in the background. Hildegard von Bingen. The hairs on Janson's neck stood erect. " 'The Canticles of Ecstasy,' " he said. "The long shadow of Alan Demarest."

"Huh? I turned him on to that," she said, shrugging. "Back when we were growing up."

Janson stared at her, seeing her as if for the first time. Suddenly, a series of small nagging details snapped into place. The movement of her head, her sudden, bewildering shifts of affect and tone, her age, even certain lines and locutions.

"Jesus Christ," he said. "You're - "

"His twin sister. Told you sisterhood was powerful." She started to massage the loose skin beneath her left collarbone. "The fabulous Demarest twins. Double trouble. Terrorized fucking Fairfield growing up. The Mobius morons never even knew that Alan brought me into the picture." As she spoke, her circular movements became deeper, more insistent, seemingly responding to an itch deep beneath the skin. "So if you think I'm going to 'give him up,' as you so artfully put it, you'd better think again."

"You don't have a choice," Janson said.

"What is she doing?" Jessica asked in a low voice.

"We always have a choice." Lang's movements grew smaller, more focused; with her fingers she started to dig at something to the side of her clavicle. "Ah," she said. "That's it. That's it. Oh, that feels so much better ... "

"Paul!" Jessica shouted. She made the inference a moment before he did. "Stop her!"

It was too late. There was the barely audible pop of a subdermal ampoule, and the woman threw her head back, as if in ecstasy, her face flushing to a purplish red. She made a soft, almost sensual panting sound, which subsided into a gargling sound deep in her throat. Her jaw fell open, slack, and a rivulet of saliva dribbled from the side of her mouth. Then her eyes rolled up, leaving only the whites visible through her half-parted lids.

From unseen speakers, the ghostly voices sang.

Gaudete in ilio, quem no viderunt in terris multi; qui ipsum ardenter vocaverunt. Gaudete in capite vestro.

Janson put a hand on Marta Lang's long neck, feeling for a pulse, even though he knew there would be none. The signs of cyanide poisoning were hard to miss. She chose death before surrender, and Janson was hard-pressed to say whether it represented an act of courage or one of cowardice.

We always have a choice, the dead woman had said. We always have a choice. Another voice, from decades past, joined it in his memory: one of the Viet Cong interrogators, the man with the steel-framed glasses. Not to decide is to decide.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The console on the secretary-general's desk chimed. Helga's voice: "I'm sorry to disturb you, but it's Mr. Novak again."

Mathieu Zinsou turned to the high commissioner for